Gegaderung > Anglo-Saxon Discussion

Angles and Jutes Celtic people revisited

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Veronica:
Recently attended a lecture by [Sir?] Barry Cunliffe entitled 'Who were the Celts'.  Apparently thinking on the Celts, who they were and where they came from is currently under serious academic debate but, perhaps because I'm a simpleton, I came away with the sense that all Germanic tribes had Celtic roots, hence problems with trying to identify Celtic genes!   If who ever posted this subject initially is really interested it might be worth looking to see what Cunliffe has written lately.

Veronica:
PS Just found Horsa's 'English in Britain before the Romans' and visited the u-tube site he provided (Thanks Horsa).  It provides a part, though not all, of Cunliffe's argument. 

ubique:
It was  me who started it :D

Im currently reading a book called Myths and Symbols in Pagan Europe by Hilda Ellis Davidson that shows some interesting parrellels between Celtic and Germanic culture but that is not supriseing really when you look at the Indo European roots of both cultures (and all european cultures).

My understanding of the situation is that tribes would have never (or until much later) Celtic or Germanic but they would have been closer linguisticly and culturally closer to one or the other in most cases.The Belgice (modern belgiuns) if im correct in remembering may have been ethinicly Germanic but culturally Celtic and possibly the vise versa with the Picts.

Intresting subject I must say

Deoran:
I don’t know whether it’s been mentioned previously, but I read Stephen Oppenheimer book “The Origins of the British” a while ago, which I would recommend to anyone interested in this topic.

If I remember correctly, he reviews the various peoples and cultures to which the term “Celt” has been applied, which seems to include virtually all western and central Europeans (making “Celt” so inclusive and vague a term that it becomes almost meaningless), presents rigorous genetic evidence demonstrating that most pre-Roman inhabitants of Britain (also "Celts") originated around the Mediterranean and reached Britain through migration and colonisation of Europe’s western seaboard, following the last Ice Age, with no significant genetic contribution from central Europe. I think he was also tentatively comfortable with the argument that there were Saxons (or Jutes/Angles) in Britain during or even before the Roman period.

Roge:
I started to read this book also but only got as far as around Chapter 3 before my head started turning into mush as this was a new subject for my self.

After what you have written I obviously was understanding to a degree what is written in Origins of the British. The information that you have extracted from the book and explained here makes perfect sense to me now. Might be time to have another go at starting the book again.

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